Frank Miller's Holy What The @#*% Was That?!

It must be hard to be an industry giant- any industry. No matter what the outlet, there is something to be said about meeting the axiom "you're only as good as the last thing you've done" at least somewhat half-way. It's just the price for putting yourself out there, for anyone really, I guess- apply it as you will. 

As a creative entity, though, you do owe it to yourself to constantly strive for that "next level" as you hone your particular craft in the here-and-now-- comfort zones should equal death. However, I suppose, once you've been successfully at your "thing" for a few decades, it seems easy to get painted into a corner of idiomatic schtick whether you like it or not. Sure, latter-day "experimental forays" are met with mixed results at best but pretty soon you probably need to resign yourself to being this self-parodying "Hollywood Squares" version of your former self. Sorry, but it's really the best case scenario for us all. Then there's graphic novelist/film director Frank Miller-- whose latest offering, Holy Terror, would have us believe that as he draws ever nearer to the age of senior citizen entitlements, he is going swinging full-on early bird into the batshit crazy buffet!

For a man who has given so much to inform the language, landscape and sensibilities of modern comics for a generation (plus)-- myself largely included in those that have been impacted by his awesomeness, I do not take to this smack-talking lightly. If this was merely a creative misfire that didn't quite connect, it could easily be shrugged off, forgiven and thrown into the "oh well, can't win 'em all" pile forevermore (a la his solo directorial debut, The Spirit, where Miller's newly-adopted fedora affectation was clearly in the creative driver's seat).

Contemplating chinstrap for hat?

If only that were the case here. If. Only...

Instead, what we are "treated" to is a tome wholly devoid of any kind of socially redeeming art or provocation value. Initially hyped for years as a "Batman vs. Al-Qaeda" story, Miller's underlying goal all the same was to not so much to tell a typical "beginning-middle-end"-style tale with a familiar protagonist set against a topical foe but to intentionally manufacture a piece of jingoistic propaganda guaranteed to universally revile. At some point, he and Batman's handlers at DC Comics parted ways on the project and the book ultimately became the debut release from Legendary. Choosing to start out on the foot of controversy with a "comic book Salman Rushdie" could be a curious choice for a publisher- maybe not so much when you're just the new arm of a splashy Hollywood production company though, huh?

It's not the actual displays of Miller's calculated crassness that offend so deeply or even his grotesquely hateful racism towards all Muslims (which come off as more as personally shameful for the author and kinda make you fell sorry for him) that evoke the true feelings of "bad taste" as it is the outright conception and execution of this travesty. Apparently, he would have us believe that this epic, while in many respects the comic book equivalent of a Faces of Death movie, also (literally) attempts to embrace the overtures of Captain America socking Hitler across the jaw in the classic cover from 1940. Just more viscerally jumped-up for our ADHD'd-out go-go modern lifestyle. Wait- didn't we already have that when South Park's Eric Cartman went Looney Tunes on Osama bin Laden? Either way, not really sure how we should extend... gratitude for such a.. um, truly unique 9/11 ten-year anniversary "memento" (that nobody particularly wanted or asked for). And without leading to too much sidebar discussion, what strange times these are when Trey Parker and Matt Stone could effectively lead seminars on where "the line" is...

Grumpy Old Men-- this time it's personal...

And above all else, whatever you do-- please, PLEASE! don't call Holy Terror a Batman story. Get "The Bat" out of your mind. Sadly, though, the only one who didn't get clued to this revisionist memory wipery would be ol' Frankie himself. While by right, Batman is the copyrighted property of a corporation and created by Bob Kane in 1939, Frank Miller's take on the character has all but become the definitive version in the eyes of modern pop culture over the past 25 years. It's very hard to separate the two. Personally, I even have a hard time watching the recent Christopher Nolan movies without thinking about blocky, grizzled Old Bruce in that anachronistic grey/blue spacesuit putting a jagged spiked bat-boot to the face of Old Superman. Instantly I'm brought back to being 13 years old, reading The Dark Knight Returns! And that's just me- casual Batman fan- I can only imagine of the associations that go on in the mind of the guy who made those experiences possible.

This does beckon some larger questions, though. If all Miller really wanted to do was tell a Batman story, why not just tell a damn Batman story already? (Although given how badly DKR's actual sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, was critically received, maybe it's just as well.) And, if it's not a "Batman story" what the hell is it, then? In that respect, HT dies on its own merits because it wants to play like the bastardized excerpts of his seminal dystopian bat-epic the entire time! There is a severe lack of originality in any of the story elements. His "hero", while not direct-to-type with noble Bruce Wayne, harkens in disposition instead to another of Miller's own former creations: the psychopathically uber-patriotic thug Nuke from Marvel Comics' acclaimed 1986 Daredevil storyline, "Born Again"- proving that what could potentially have been a showcase for some originality in itself still becomes an exercise in wanton regurgitation.

Art-wise, it's a pretty phoned-in affair as well. If you're at least passingly familiar with any of Miller's previous work within the past three-plus decades, there is sadly nothing new to be found in the layouts . The signature style is certainly still there- all the stark, monolithic figures and minimalist juxtaposition of gutter-punk and avant garde- but it's just a pale shade of former glories, commanding none of the gravity it normally should. In terms of trying to evoke the "old tones", weather and lighting are very much foreground elements. It's enough to make one reminisce of tales from FM's Sin City yet not enough to transport in that same manner to an equally seedy noir-tropolis. Instead, the rain  comes off as some half-assedly amateurish attempt to ape Jackson Pollack with the larger notion of "background as character" screaming "knock-off" quite loudly all the while.  As most of the 2000s have seen Miller involved in film, it's been some time since he's done comics. It would've been nice if maybe his craft evidenced some new turn. I'm sorry, a two page spread of nothing but diminishing blank white squares? You hipped me to it back in the day- but now? Ho. Hum.

Statue of Blind Lady Justice-Liberty's cornrows: bleeding edge or passe?

So, if there's wasn't an audience clamoring for the work and the creator himself isn't bringing any new tricks to the table- what was the point? Just so we can all have the pleasure at being offended by this "art" that absolutely, positively needed to be birthed into the world- no matter how intentionally ugly?! I'm sorry, but Holy Terror is indeed something else entirely functioning outside the umbrella of "art for art's sake". It actually plays closer to the foil-helmeted doomsaying of those fringe characters that hang out by the highway off-ramps. They have signs and draw pretty pictures on them too sometimes, y'know. Frank's just happens to be more elaborate than most, I suppose.

Speaking of Frank's friends in the "outdoor set", the flak heaped on him over this one-man anti-jihadist jihad bad-joke manifesto would only probably be half as bad if it didn't come so two-fisted with the now-infamous post on his blog regarding the Occupy movement. While his right to voice his opinion against the protests is as valid as theirs, one may also look into his motivations with the same mark of cynicism that he himself extols in the tirade. Capitalizing on a coincidence that no one could've ever really planned, Miller's own counterpoint comments- while not overtly screaming "Buy my new book, Holy Terror, out now from Legendary Books..."-  do openly lend themselves quite readily to a certain opportunistic huckstering one may find on an extended press junket. Just like when somebody has a new product to shill.  Hmmm. Conspiracy, anyone?